LARIDA. 599 
Though so delicate in appearance this bird quite 
equals other Gulls in the extent of its appetite and 
the variability of its food, which consists for the most 
part of fish and dead and putrid matter.* It is a 
constant attendant on the flenzing operations of the 
whale fishers. 
Yarrell describes the adult bird as follows :—The 
bill greenish grey at the base and about the nostrils, 
the rest yellow; the whole of the plumage, including 
the wing and tail-feathers, a pure and delicate white ; 
legs short and black. The adult in winter, he says, 
has a few greyish streaks or lines about the head; 
and the young birds, like most of the other young 
Gulls, are more or less mottled with pale brown. 
The eggs are said to be olive-coloured, spotted 
with brown. + 
Common Guuu, Larus canus. The Common Gull, 
although perhaps not quite so common as the Her- 
ring Gull or the Kittiwake, is nevertheless a nu- 
merous species on our coast; but I do not know that 
it breeds on any part of it, though from its wide 
range of breeding grounds it might easily find situa- 
tions to suit it. Mr. Blake-Knox, in his paper on 
the Common Gull, in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1867 
(p. 625), says its favourite breeding places are the 
shores of lakes or salt marshes, unfrequented islands 
or rocky clitfs. The nest is placed by the water's 
* Meyer's ‘ British Birds,’ vol, vil, p, 144. ¢ Id. p, 143. 
